1. Field of Invention The present invention is related to the field of mobile communications. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for gathering, organizing and displaying contact information in a mobile communications device and associated network.
2. Description of Related Technology
Mobile communications devices such as cellular telephones, smartphones and personal information managers (PIMs) such as the Blackberry device manufactured by RIM typically store contact information including name, address, short message service (SMS) information, e-mail, chat ID and one or more telephone numbers. Users of the mobile devices can view the contact information via a display screen integrated into the device. These contacts may also be stored and used on a per-user basis; i.e., different users of the same device may have their own personalized contact lists.
Prior art approaches to contact management by the mobile device user include listing contacts in alphabetical order based on name. These often resemble a “rolodex” or similar device, in order to provide the user a recognizable frame of reference. The managed contacts may also be listed in the order in which they were last contacted, or even other schemes (e.g., priority or frequency or duration of use). To initiate a communications session such as a telephone call or PoC (push-to-talk over cellular) session, the user may select one of the contacts using an input device such as a keypad or input wheel.
Due to recent technological advances, many mobile communications devices now have the ability to determine their location. Position location may be performed by triangulation with one or more cell sites or the use of a satellite based position location service such as the “Global Positioning Service” (GPS). Other types of technological advances, such as the ability to create ad hoc networks or device pairings using, e.g., WiFi (IEEE Std. 802.11) or Bluetooth devices, provides yet further information that may be useful in determining location.
A variety of different approaches to mobile device location and contact management/interaction are present in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,362,778 to Neher issued on Mar. 26, 2002 and entitled “Personal location detection system” discloses a personal locator system for determining the location of a locator unit. The system includes a locator device in communication with both a central station and a GPS satellite. A communication system is positioned within the housing for contacting the central station and includes a transmitter and receiver. A GPS unit is also positioned within the housing for contacting the GPS system for determining a location of said locator device. Upon receipt of a location request signal by the receiver from the central station, the locator unit activates the GPS unit to contact the GPS system and receive location data therefrom. Upon receipt of the location data, the transmitter transmits the location data to the central station for analysis.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,819,919 to Tanaka issued on Nov. 16, 2004 and entitled “Method for providing matching and introduction services to proximate mobile users and service providers” discloses a system enabling mobile wireless users to obtain information on other proximate users both fixed and wireless. The information is gathered from a central database that stores user profiles and real-time locations of system users. Mobile users can request information on nearby users by submitting a request from a mobile telephone or similar communications endpoint to the central database. The request is accompanied by the user's location, obtained from GPS (Global Positioning System) or other technology, or from user input. The server searches the profile database for nearby users based on requester's location, locations of other users of the system and optional parameters specified in the request. Search results are returned to the requester. The system facilitates communication between requester and owner(s) of profiles returned by system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,950,649 to Videtich issued on Sep. 27, 2005 and entitled “Method and system for pulling information from a mobile vehicle within a mobile vehicle communications system” discloses a system and method that is directed to obtaining information from a mobile vehicle within a mobile vehicle communication service. The method provides creating a mobile vehicle contact list based on an information request, determining a time period to transmit the mobile vehicle contact list and the information request, transmitting the mobile vehicle contact list and the information request to the mobile vehicle at the determined time period, and receiving the information from the mobile vehicle, at a specified time, based on the information requested. The system further provides means for creating a vehicle contact list based on the information request, means for determining a time period to transmit the mobile vehicle contact list and the information request, means for transmitting the mobile vehicle contact list and the information request to the mobile vehicle at the determined time period, and means for receiving the information, at a specified time, from the mobile vehicle based on the information requested.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,968,052 to Wullert, II issued on Nov. 22, 2005 and entitled “Method and apparatus for creating a presence monitoring contact list with dynamic membership” discloses methods and apparatus to generate a dynamic contact list of contact and presence information about contact events in a communication system when a calling entity unsuccessfully attempts to communicate with a called entity. When such a contact event occurs, a routing processor or call agent generates contact information about the contact event, including the calling party, called party, time of the contact event, and purpose of the contact event. A presence management processor also generates the presence information about the calling party's subsequent availability for return communication, including if a calling party is available for return communication, when the calling party is available for return communication, how long the calling party is available for return communication, and how the calling party is available for return communication. This contact and presence information is displayed to the called party in a dynamic contact list that includes contact and presence information for a plurality of contact events and calling parties, respectively.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,973,299 to Apfel issued on Dec. 6, 2005 and entitled “Unified contact list” discloses methods, systems, and computer program products for maintaining current contact and metadata information for one or more contacts. A mobile phone stores contact information for multiple forms of mobile phone communication with the contacts. Each contact is identified as either an automatic live contact to be synchronized as new information becomes available or as another contact that will not be synchronized as new information becomes available. The mobile phone communicates the contacts to a data service provider for backup storage and update processing. From automatic contact and metadata information updates initiated by and received from the data service provider the mobile phone periodically updates automatic live contacts. Based on the synchronized contact and metadata information, the mobile phone initiates communication with one of the contacts. Example communication includes voice, email, instant messaging, short message service, multimedia message service, locate, and peer to peer application (such as gaming) communication.
United States Patent Publication No. 20020067308 to Robertson published on Jun. 6, 2002 and entitled “Location/time-based reminder for personal electronic devices” discloses a system and method which combines a positioning system, for example, the Navistar global positioning system (GPS), with a personal electronic device. The personal electronic device can be a PDA, or a mobile cellular phone, for example. The positioning system provides real-time location specific information that is converted into coordinates, such as latitude and longitude. The system and method of the present invention then references the location to a particular task stored in resident memory and activates a reminder which notifies the user of a particular task. This involves having the user input reminders which signal when the user is within a specified geographic area, or within a specified range which is in the resolution of the GPS.
United States Patent Publication No. 20040017376 to Tagliabue et al. published on Jan. 29, 2004 and entitled “Graphic entries for interactive directory”, incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, discloses an apparatus and method for a communication device having a display for graphically organizing communication patterns of the user. Visual attributes of the images associated with specific parties are varied dynamically as the communication patterns of the user with specific parties change. For example, users are represented by pictures, which grow and shrink according to, e.g., frequency of communication.
United States Patent Publication No. 20050073443 to Sheha, et al. published on Apr. 7, 2005 and entitled “Method and system for saving and retrieving spatial related information” discloses a method and apparatus for storing, referencing, retrieving, and graphically displaying spatial and non-spatial related information of a mobile computing device, such as a laptop computer or a cellular telephone. The spatial-related information may be obtained by using positioning tracking systems such as a global positioning system, whereas the non-spatial related information may include communication activities associated with the mobile computing device, such as phone calls, e-mails, text messages, pages, etc. The present invention also provides methods and apparatus of summarizing the spatial and non-spatial related information for more effective and intuitive display of the information to the user, including the use of graphical map and calendar of events. Finally, the present invention provides methods and apparatus for sharing the spatial and non-spatial related information with other users, and for planning routes of travel using the spatial and non-spatial related information.
United States Patent Publication No. 20050143096 to Boesch published Jun. 30, 2005 and entitled “System and method for establishing and monitoring the relative location of group members” discloses systems and methods for monitoring a perimeter for ingress or egress by a member of an ad hoc wireless network. A wireless device is equipped with location means. In an embodiment, the wireless device is a cellular telephone equipped with a GPS chip set. A plurality of such wireless devices form an ad hoc network and are linked to a server in association with each other. The server receives retains perimeter boundary data and receives positioning information from each of the plurality of associated wireless devices. The locations of each member of a network are tracked relative to perimeter. A perimeter may be an egress perimeter, which defines an area in which monitored units are permitted to roam but from which network members may not leave. A perimeter may be an ingress perimeter, which defines an area in which monitored units are not permitted to enter. An ingress perimeter may reside within an egress perimeter. The system provides warnings when a perimeter boundary is approached or crossed.
United States Patent Publication No. 20050233776 to Allen et al. published on Oct. 20, 2005 and entitled “Method and apparatus for dynamic group address creation” discloses a method and apparatus for creating and maintaining dynamic group addresses for facilitating Push-to-Talk over Cellular (PoC) group communication sessions among mobile stations in a communications network are disclosed. In one embodiment the method comprises receiving at least one rule defining a member of the dynamic group in association with a group address; and populating the dynamic group with members from said mobile stations determined in accordance with the at least one rule. Rules may be defined with reference to presence and/or location information available for the mobile stations. Such information may be published on behalf of the stations to one or more servers adapted to identify mobile stations matching the rules. The method may comprise subscribing to the servers to obtain the matching mobile stations with which to populate dynamic group addresses.
“Friend contact” services are also known in the prior art. For example, the service provided by Dodgeball.com (Google Inc.) allows users to contact their friend via text messaging; users enter their friend or “buddy” lists, and then send a communication to the server indicating their present location. The service then sends out messages to the persons listed on the user's list, thereby notifying them of the user's present location. This service, however, suffers from several disabilities including the inability of a user to know the locations of his/her friends, family, buddies, etc. Rather, the Dodgeball approach merely broadcasts information, and the user regarding which the information was broadcast really has no information as to the status or location of the persons on his/her list that are receiving the messages. It also suffers from requiring too much user manual entry, which can become very tedious, especially in the case of larger contact lists.
The aforementioned contact management schemes are lacking, however, in their ability to leverage the dynamically varying situation of the mobile user. This variability may reflect itself in the changing position or location of the user, the changing situation or context of the user (e.g., work versus school versus home versus traveling, etc.), and the changing needs of a user within a particular context (e.g., the need to access different types of contacts based on current situation, even within the same context or venue). The “rolodex” paradigm previously described is especially lacking, in that it has no real mechanism to capture this type of variability. For example a typical rolodex function can simply be updated with new information, yet there is still no connection or intelligence in the management or utilization of this information with respect to the user's present context or situation.
Prior art proximity and location determination is also very much a “point to point” determination; e.g., the user's distance from a known or fixed location. This approach is suitable where many such fixed location references are available, but is not well suited to a constantly changing mobile user environment. Furthermore, such approaches prevent significant display and scaling challenges, since one buddy or friend of the user may be close, another relatively distant, and some in-between, thereby requiring the display scaling to accommodate all three situations in an integrated display. This may cause the display to change scale, e.g., such that a small scale (large area) is represented, thereby rendering very close contacts effectively on top of one another on the display. This is essentially useless to a user, and any associated display information is almost necessarily obscured in such situations.
From a service provider perspective, the prior art is also deficient in that it essentially robs the user of many opportunities for communication or social interaction that they might otherwise take advantage of. For example, one located at a university may seek to contact one or more of their friends if they knew that these friends were geographically proximate to their present location (e.g., “let's have lunch” or “can you give me a ride”). Conversely, if the user has no information regarding the whereabouts (and status) of these friends, they may be much more hesitant to contact them. For the service provider, this translates to less calls, SMS messages, e-mails, or other transmissions made, and hence less revenue per unit time. It also translates to reduced user satisfaction and increased frustration, since the user is effectively operating in the blind and without timely and pertinent information that they might otherwise make use of. Users can feasibly call their friends, family etc. to find out where they are located or what their situation is, but this is time consuming, likely a bother to their friends, and consumes several calls on the network.
Hence, there is a salient need for improved apparatus and methods of using contact information (e.g., lists) and position location information common to many communications devices (or their infrastructure) in order to provide more powerful contact, “buddy”, and location list management functions. Such improved apparatus and methods would also allow for the utilization of multiple parameters or conditions related to a user's contacts, including proximity (relative location to the user or another location or entity, or cognitive/psychographic “proximity”) and presence (including user or contact status).
Such improved apparatus and methods would ideally be readily integrated into existing mobile communications platforms and infrastructure, and would allow the user to access real-time information concerning the proximity and status of other users, both in-network and associated with other networks.
Such apparatus and methods would also allow for the proximity determination to be based on locations other than that of the user, and would also account for geographic or other features which would tent to expand or contract the proximity determination from a practical perspective.
It would further permit for a useful display scale or representation which would communicate useful information to the user in a substantially automatic fashion without the user having to change display settings, scale, etc., such as via ad hoc area or display determination.